Basin (1127–1279): Art, History and Details

Basin (1127–1279) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Guan ware was the official ware fired at the Southern Song imperial kilns in Hangzhou. Multiple glazing is characteristic of this ware. The total thickness of the glaze can be greater than the clay body that supports it. Here, the thick gray-green glaze is webbed with a wide network of dark brown crackles as well as finer webs of light golden-brown and colorless crackles. The crackle pattern was developed after firing, due to the different rates of expansion and contraction of the body and the glaze. It was consciously exploited to achieve an aesthetic effect and was stained at different stages during the cooling process.

Object facts

• Title: Basin
• Date: 1127–1279
• Culture: China, Zhejiang province, Hangzhou, Southern Song dynasty (1127-1279)
• Type: Ceramic
• Technique: porcelaneous stoneware, Guan ware
• Dimensions: Diameter: 24.2 cm (9 1/2 in.)
• Collection: China - Song Dynasty
• Department: Chinese Art
• Accession number: 1957.48

A detail from the museum

The base shows that the basin was fired on 17 small spurs arranged in two concentric circles.

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958.
• Milliken, William M. "Early Byzantine Silver." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 45, no. 3 (1958): 35–94.
• Mayuyama, Junkichi 繭山順吉. Chinese Ceramics in the West: Compendium of Chinese Ceramic Masterpieces in European and American Collection [欧米蒐蔵中国陶磁図錄]. Tokyo: Mayuyama & Co, 1960.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.